c. 2008 Religion News Service

Chicago cardinal suspends priest at center of Clinton flap

(RNS) Five days after muzzling the priest who mocked Sen. Hillary Clinton, Cardinal Francis George on Tuesday (June 3) suspended the Rev. Michael Pfleger and told him to “reflect on his recent statements and actions.”

“I have asked Father Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s Parish, to step back from his obligations there and take leave for a couple of weeks from his pastoral duties, effective today,” George said. “Father Pfleger does not believe this to be the right step at this time.

“While respecting this disagreement, I have nevertheless asked him to use this opportunity to reflect on his recent statements and actions in the light of the Church’s regulations for all Catholic priests.”

Pfleger, who is white, apologized Sunday after a May 25 speech at Sen. Barack Obama’s former church in which he said Clinton cried on the campaign trail because “there’s a black man stealing my show.”

Last week, George ordered Pfleger to abstain from partisan politics and the outspoken priest agreed to “not publicly mention any candidate by name” through the November elections.

In an interview with The Chicago Sun-Times published Tuesday, Pfleger said he disagreed with George that “as a Catholic priest, I’m not allowed to publicly support a candidate. I said my understanding was that, as an individual, I can support anyone I want.”

Nevertheless, Pfleger said he consented to the cardinal’s decree because “I did not want to create another distraction for him or for Barack.” Pfleger said he didn’t think his remarks at Trinity United Church of Christ were being recorded.

Asked if he was in jeopardy of being removed from his longtime pulpit at St. Sabina’s, Pfleger said, “Because of the hierarchical nature of the archdiocese, I think you’re always serving at the discretion of the cardinal.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

UpDATE: Cal State, Quaker professor reach accord

(RNS) The California State University system and a Quaker college instructor who balked at signing a state-required loyalty oath have reached an agreement that allows her to teach and attach a statement to the oath.

Wendy Gonaver, 38, said the oath, with its promise to “defend” the U.S. and California constitutions against all enemies, contradicts her Quaker pacifist beliefs.

Under the agreement, brokered by CSU and People for the American Way Foundation, Gonaver will be allowed to attach a statement to the oath stating that “such compulsion violates my right to freedom of speech.”

“And, as a Quaker, in order to sign the oath in good conscience, I must also state that I do not promise to undertake to bear arms or otherwise engage in violence,” the attached statement continues.

Gonaver will teach two classes this fall at Cal State Fullerton, according to People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal nonprofit.

The state-run school system had objected to a previous statement Gonaver attached to the oath, believing it undermined the pledge, which is required of all state employees.

_ Daniel Burke

Pope allows diplay of Shroud of Turin

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has approved the rare public exhibition of the Shroud of Turin, a linen cloth that many believe was used for Jesus’ burial.

The shroud will go on display in 2010 for the first time in a decade, Benedict announced Monday (June 3).

“If the Lord grants me life and health, I hope also to come for this display,” Benedict told a group of pilgrims from the northwestern Italian city of Turin, where the shroud is kept in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

Venerated since at least the 14th century as the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, the 14.5-foot long cloth shows front and back images of a bearded man with apparent wounds in his hands, feet and side.

The shroud seemed to have been discredited when Vatican-approved tests in 1988 at three separate laboratories determined its date of origin as between 1261 and 1390.

But in 2005, a study published in the chemistry journal Thermochimica Acta concluded that the cloth could be 1,300 to 3,000 years old, putting it in the same time frame as Jesus’ death.

The Catholic Church has no official position on the object’s authenticity, but endorses it as an aid to devotion. “For the believer,” said Pope John Paul II in 1998, “what counts above all is that the Shroud is a mirror of the Gospel.”

_ Francis X. Rocca

Gay marriage amendment OK’d for Calif. ballot

(RNS) A California constitutional amendment to limit marriage to “a man and a woman” has been approved for the Nov. 4 general election, just weeks after the state Supreme Court permitted same-sex marriages.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Monday (June 2) certified that supporters had submitted some 1.1 million signatures, more than the 694,000 needed to place the measure on the November ballot.

Bowen’s decision followed the state Supreme Court’s May 15 overturning of a 2000 voter referendum that banned same-sex marriages. Under the court ruling, California would become follow Massachusetts to be the second U.S. state to permit gay and lesbian couples to marry.

If the newly qualified ballot measure is approved by voters in the fall, it would trump the court decision. Unless the court stays its decision, marriage licenses to same-sex couples will be issued starting June 17.

“Passing this amendment is the only way for the people to override the four supreme court judges who want to redefine marriage for our entire society,” said Ron Prentice, chairman of the ProtectMarriage.com coalition that sponsored the amendment.

Equality California, a group equal access to civil marriage, said it would increase its work to defeat the measure.

“While we have been anticipating this for several weeks, we now know for sure that the fight of our lives is here,” said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California.

More than 1.1 million voters signed petitions supporting the measure, which reads “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Quote of the Day: Jim Beckemeier of St. Louis

(RNS) “What the church has done wrong is that it has created these `holy huddles’ of Christian magazines, music and schools that have set them apart from the world because the world is bad. Instead of doing what Christ did, and bring light to the world, they retreat from it.”

_ Jim Beckemeier, a member of the Journey, a Southern Baptist megachurch of mostly younger evangelicals that meets once a month in the back room of a bar. He was quoted by The New York Times.

KRE DS END RNS